The People in His Room
by sketchnurse
Summary: House is in the Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital, four weeks after his arrival, still dealing with his head and his hallucinations. UNFINISHED.
1. Chapter 1

**I couldn't resist writing what I'm sure is going to be one of many fics about House in the psychiatric hospital. The finale really shook me up and inspired me. Might just be a one shot, give me feedback.**

He woke up, as he had for the past four weeks, to the sound of her voice and the loud ticking of the clock.

"We got you, didn't we?" He was angry, just as angry as he had been the days before, when she had the same thing. Every five days, a new statement, none of which made him feel any better about himself.

"Shut up." He muttered to the woman in the corner of the room, the woman he knew wasn't actually, the woman he knew was lying in a grave somewhere, not taunting him in his lilac room. It really was his room now, though he could never feel as much attachment for it as he could for his real room, in his apartment, the room with his clothing lying on the floor, the room with his guitar, the room with the bed, the bed that he thought he had made love to Cuddy on.

"The wound still stings, doesn't it?"

He was tired of the bland meals they made him, he wanted pizza, he wanted scotch, he wanted Wilson, making jokes with him, he wanted Cuddy.

"The wound still smarts, doesn't it? You're still sad that we made it all up."

"We just told you what you wanted to hear. We tricked you. She doesn't want you." Kutner stood beside Amber, his voice deadly serious, his eyes blank and staring.

House was getting really pissed off now. Every morning, they went over what happened, or what he thought had happened. Frankly, it wasn't funny anymore. It wasn't even entertaining.

"Why did you kill yourself?" he asked, just like yesterday.

"Why would he know? You don't know, we don't know. You asked us yesterday."

"Insanity is doing the same thing more than once and expecting a different outcome. I'm trying to fulfill the parameters of my residence here."

"I think the freak visions did that for you already, actually."

"Are we going to cover any new ground today? Or are we going to go over how I tricked myself into delusionary happiness with Cuddy?"

"You're in love with her." stated Kutner, his eyes still boring a hole into House's skull.

"What an really fucking original thought," House said sarcastically, "You've only mentioned it about a thousand times since I got here."

"Your night with her as your saviour? You were just trying to tell yourself that she's in love with you, and that's why you spend so much time with her. But she's not. How many times has Wilson visited you?"

"Seventeen." he answered dully, knowing where this was going.

"And how many times has she come?"

"None." he said, a bitter taste in his mouth again. He was in love with her. But she hadn't come to see him once since he started at the Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital.

"That's right. Not one single fucking visit."

"Maybe it's too hard for her to see me."

"And maybe you were just a valued piece of hospital property."

"No!" he shouted, trying again to make them understand. She cared about him, he was sure.

"You really think that anyone could love you? That anyone could really care about you enough to visit you here, in your complete helplessness, just to see how you're doing?"

House froze. Here was a voice that he hadn't heard in this room, but had heard nearly all his life. He turned and looked at the figure of a man who had known why he didn't look like him, and tortured him for it everyday.

"Wilson does." He said slowly. He had been expecting his father to visit him for a while.

"Oh, right, the sissy oncologist. How do you know he doesn't want to get in your pants when you get out of here, if you get out of here?"

"He's my friend."

"And what the fuck would you know about friends? You only have one. And you take advantage of him for everything, it's a wonder that he even comes down to see you. If I were him, I would be glad that you were finally in the psycho ward. You're just a piece of shit son of a bitch."

"Shut up. Just shut up. I don't care what you have to say."

"But you need to hear it. It's your own mind talking. Maybe you should listen to what we're telling you. Maybe if you listen to your hallucinations, they'll go away." The older House laughed, and the sound was excruciating to House's ears, having heard it many times many years ago.

"You're still depressed that darling Lisa hasn't come to see you yet." cooed Amber, "You've been so kind to her over the years, she should have returned the favour by now."

"I care about her." he spat, tired of trying to convince his own mind of the truth, "I'm an ass, she knows that, but I care about her."

"And if it were her, instead of you, sitting in this room, talking to her own head, would you visit?" And suddenly House saw Cuddy lying on a hospital bed, wires coming out of her head, surgeons crowded around her, preparing to saw off her skull.

"I would. You know I would."

"So you care more than her? She has a child; you couldn't raise a child if your fucking life depended on it. You hated her for getting that baby; you knew it would make her life miserable. But maybe that's what you wanted, for her to be miserable. Maybe you thought the world would be a better place if everyone was miserable." said his father.

"I never wanted her to be unhappy."

"And you think she wouldn't be unhappy if she were with you? You're a cripple and a drug addict, you don't care about anyone or anything, you're going nowhere, and now, you're here, waiting for the good doctors to figure out what's wrong with your precious head. You deserve no one. I always told you you would end up alone. Looks like I'm right."

"She's just fine with her life, she has her baby, she has her job, she has Wilson." Said Kutner, still fixing him with a death glare.

"Maybe she and Wilson should get together. Then you could have a big happy family waiting for you when you get out of here." his father spat at him.

"No." he growled, sickened at the thought. Cuddy, with Wilson? Wilson, kissing her, touching her in his favourite places?

"_That's_ right," Amber said, tilting her head to one side, "After you _thought_ you slept with her, you wanted a relationship. You wanted to wake up every morning with the satisfaction of sex with your boss. Is that it? Is that what you want?" Yes, it was what he wanted, not the satisfaction, but the knowledge that she loved him, that she wanted to be wrapped up in his arms.

"Doesn't look like your happy family fantasy is going to work though. No one's been able to figure out what the hell's wrong with you. You're just some sick fuck to them, not the kind, caring individual we all know and love."

"Shut up," he growled again, getting even more pissed off, "We've been through this before, I want her, I want to be with her, but as you keep telling me, the feeling isn't mutual."

"Maybe it isn't, maybe it is. We won't know unless she visits you."

"This isn't just about Cuddy," Kutner cut in, "It never was just about Cuddy. It's about me too. You're still infuriated with yourself that you couldn't come up with one more fucking answer. The answer to life's most beautiful question. Why do people die?"

"You killed yourself. That's why you died."

"You don't know why I killed myself."

"Maybe I don't care why you committed suicide."

"But you do. You drove yourself crazy trying to figure out why I ended my own life. You had all the clues, House. All the clues are there. And they're still there. Maybe that's what you need to do to get yourself out of here. Figure out why helpless Lawrence Kutner killed himself"

"You've lost your mind, there's nothing else to do. But maybe that's the problem. You're angry that you lost your mind. You're scared that you lost the one thing that you care about, your rational mind. Wilson's words, Gregory. If only he were here to talk with us. But he has a job, a place to be, an actual life. You're just stuck here, staring at the walls think that there are dead people taunting you. The nurses come in, they give you drugs, they give you food, and they don't give you anything else. You've been here four weeks; don't you think its time to break out yet? I'm sure you could find some way to do it. Hide some of the pills they give you, make your own homemade mind control drugs, give them to the staff, walk out of here, pretend to be cured. We'll keep you company. Dead people are fun to have around in your apartment. But we forgot. You want the princess. You want Cuddy. But you don't deserve her if you don't get through this. And if you trick your way out of these walls, you don't deserve anyone."


	2. Chapter 2

He woke up again, four weeks later, to the same sound.

"Looks like your head is still broken." Her voice was becoming almost unbearable to hear, he didn't know if any other noise was worse to him, she was a reminder of what he had lost, and of what Wilson had lost, and of everything that he wished he could reverse.

"Yeah. I'm still screwed up, you keep pointing it out, Wilson's getting worried, Cuddy still doesn't love me, yadda yadda yadda. Can you tell me something different? Oh wait," he said as Kutner opened his mouth, "I still hate myself for not figuring out your suicide. Moving on, please."

"Well done, Greg, you've figured it all out. Our pattern has been revealed. Our daily routine of pestering you before the real doctors come in is slowly driving you closer and closer to the edge. And you were pretty damn close before." Amber smiled at him, like he was an over excited five year old who had just figured out the alphabet.

"Don't you think it's time for something a bit more interesting than picking apart my thoughts every waking hour? Like, I don't know, playing badminton?"

"You want us to play badminton? Fine, but I was always horrible in high school." She produced two racquets, and handed one to Kutner. His father, mercifully, was not there that day.

"So," she said as she overhand served the birdie to Kutner, "You've been here two months, they've run about a thousand tests on you, and you're still here, waiting for an answer." The birdie sailed over the net that had appeared in the middle of the room. Kutner swung at it and hit it dead on, sending it sailing back over the net.

"Yup. Sitting here, with my hands on my lap, like a good boy, waiting to find out what sort of horrible treatment they've come up with."

"And," she swung again, the birdie making a loud whacking sound as it made contact with the racquet, "You're still talking to us, so sitting in a room had done nothing to calm the storm in your mind."

Kutner fumbled as the birdie came over to his side, he swung and missed. Picking up the birdie, he continued the conversation.

"You've been off Vicodin, and yet we're still here. Which rules that out as the cause of your problems." His shot went way off; the birdie flew into the corner of the room and landed in a glass of water.

"Damn." he muttered, as Amber walked over and picked it out of the glass. Droplets of water flew into the room as she whacked it with her racquet again.

"You're still reviewing my situation; can you play badminton without talking about my problems?"

"Nope. Aren't you curious why we haven't talked about the myriad of other things that you've associated with your problems, like that bike crash?" He had been wondering about that. But his own head would deal with itself eventually.

"I'm in love with Cuddy, she hasn't visited me, maybe that additional stress is just giving you more reason to be here. Although you're really damn useless. At least when I was still working you helped me with cases."

"And helped you get Chase into anaphylactic shock. You're right, I was great." She twirled the racquet in her hands while waiting for Kutner to pick the birdie up again.

"Kutner, you're worse than me at badminton. Maybe we should just give it up."

"I don't care. I'm dead, remember?"

"Ha ha." said House, still not amused. "You're both dead, my father is dead, everyone's dead, just stop talking to me."

"Oooh, he's never tried that one before. He told us to stop talking to him, Kutner, maybe we should listen."

"No. I think we should keep talking. You're almost fifty, you haven't had a real girlfriend in years, your life is completely in the trash, no one cares about you except Wilson, the doctors can't figure out what's wrong with you, you're still having delusions about Cuddy and detoxing, although at least now you can usually tell when they're not real. Good enough summary?"

" My hallucinations are repeating the same information everyday, I'm still in love with Cuddy, all I want is a glass of scotch, a good case and my piano, I'm getting really fucking tired of this room, and I'm due for another session with Dr. Feel-Good in two hours and forty-five minutes. I think that's it."

"If only she would call." sighed Amber dramatically, "Then we could be happy for five minutes then move on to a whole new level of depression."

'That would be more interesting than listening to the two of you go over the same information we've been discussing for two months."

"How easy is it to just pick up the phone, dial the number for the psychiatric hospital, ask to talk to Gregory House, then have a really awkward discussion about grapefruits? I mean melons. More specifically her melons"

"You think if I had the chance to talk to Cuddy I would discuss her breasts? Really, I'm not that much of an emotionally deprived teenager."

"Well, you are emotionally deprived. You haven't had a woman in months. The last time you got laid was-"

"Yeah, yeah, the criminal lawyer with the lisp. But back to Cuddy."

"You really love her, don't you?" Amber was doing the breathy schoolgirl routine, one of his least favourite of her many personas.

"Yeah, I think we all get it that House would really like it if he woke up with Cuddy in his arms. Can we leave him alone for a couple of minutes?" Kutner said.

"Fine." Amber stared at Kutner, and he stared at her back. This went on for about five minutes. The she stepped over to him and started kissing him passionately.

"Ok, now what the fuck are you doing?" They broke apart, and Amber went close to House, her nose almost touching his cheek.

"This is what you want with Cuddy." she whispered. "So go get it. Maybe if she loved you, you wouldn't be crazy." She laughed at him, and Kutner joined her, and they laughed at him until House heard a knock at the door.

"Um, Dr. House?"

"Yeah. I'm still here. What do you want?"

"I have a phone call for you."

"Damn, maybe we spoke too soon." Amber looked at Kutner, a look of deepest concern on her face.

"I'll take it."


	3. Chapter 3

The man walked into his room, wearing white scrubs and a fake smile. He was holing a cordless phone, probably because the hospital was scared that he would try to strangle himself if he ever got the opportunity. He had explained to his psychiatrist several times that he had no interest in ending his own life, but they chose to ignore that. No razors, no sharp edges, nothing that could possibly do him any lasting harm. He stroked his overgrown facial hair as he pressed the talk button on the phone that was just handed to him.

"Hi. Dr. Crazy House here." He waited for a response, waited to hear the voice he had been lingering on for the past two months. He wasn't disappointed.

"House?" Her voice was soft and he could tell, even through the bad reception, that she could burst into tears if pushed off the edge.

"Yeah. Sorry I confused you with the crazy part, but that's what I am these days. A psycho just like the rest of them. Couldn't keep my real name, you see. The retailer in the room down the hall is the Mad Hatter, although I wouldn't try phoning him. Still thinks he's a goose." He heard a muffled sound on the other line, possibly laughter, possibly a sob, possibly a sigh of relief that he was still making jokes, that he hadn't completely lost sight of his mind.

"So, what took you so long to call?" He couldn't keep the longing out of his voice, though he tried hard, and he knew she noticed it. He was well aware of the orderly standing in the doorway, and he tried to wave him away, but to no avail.

"I've been, um, busy. With your, uh, replacement. I mean," she said quickly, "Not a permanent replacement, you will be coming back." She sounded like she was trying to convince herself that he would come back, that things would return to normal. House didn't have such high hopes.

"Don't count on it, Cuddy. Bonnie and Clyde are still bothering me."

"There are two of them?"

"Wilson didn't tell you? I've been seeing Kutner too."

"Oh God. That must be horrible."

"It's not so bad. Aside from the derogatory comments about my mental health and the constant questioning about why I didn't see his suicide coming, it's been really fun. Having two people who aren't really there is a lot better than just Cutthroat Bitch. This way, they can bounce ideas without me taking part. Although I guess it's all me. You just interrupted a game of badminton, actually."

"Who was winning?" Cuddy asked, trying to mask the complete concern for him in her voice. He caught it though, and cursed himself for having such an effect on her, and for caring that he had such an effect on her.

"Amber. Kutner's a lousy smasher."

"So, have they, uh," her voice caught in her throat, "Figured out what's wrong with you?" she finally whispered.

"Well, you'd know more than me through Wilson. I just sit here, go to tests, get my head scanned, talk to lousy psychiatrists who couldn't help a lost puppy, and listen to people yell at me who aren't there. Not much information given to me. I'm a patient, and they generally don't disclose 'sensitive' information. I have no idea what the hell is wrong with me, but it's not the Vicodin."

"You're off Vicodin?"'

"Yeah, I asked them to stop giving it to me."

"Was it hard?"

"Yeah, well, I had already though I detoxed, so I figured it wouldn't be so bad. Which was really, really stupid. But I'm over it now, I think."

"Do you still have withdrawal symptoms?"

"Yeah."

"Wait. You thought you detoxed before? When was this?"

"Oh, God, Wilson hasn't told you yet?"

"Told me what?" Great. Because Wilson hadn't wanted to talk to her, he was stuck explaining his delusion of her.

"Oh no, now you have to tell poor Cuddy that you thought you slept together. She's going to break your little heart." He glared at Amber, trying to get her to shut up, but looking at his hallucinations had never gotten them to shut up before.

"Where have you been, Cuddy? I thought you would have gotten all the dizzying details about me by now."

"I've, been, um, well," she hesitated, then answered. "I've been in Florida, actually. My cousin Sean has been accused of second degree murder. I had to sit in on the trial." She hesitated again. "I'm sorry I haven't been there, but I had to leave after Cameron's wedding, I had no way of contacted you, I, I-" she broke into sobs, and he let her cry, because he knew she needed to.

"It's okay. I understand Cuddy, it's okay. Calm down, everything's fine."

"But you're not. You're not fine, and I feel like it's my fault." She broke down into new sobs, and he felt his chest twist into a tight new shape.

"That's stupid Cuddy, it's not your fault. Why the hell would it be your fault that I'm more fucked than a prostitute on a Saturday night?" She laughed at that, shaky, hesitant laughs that were still full of tears.

"I realized something, while I was away."

"And you need to tell me because you don't know if I'll be sane the next time you talk?"

"No. You're going to be fine, Greg." He still wasn't sure whether he would get through this, but he didn't challenge the statement.

"She called you Greg. Maybe she's in looooooooooooove." Amber cooed. He swallowed, and dared to ask the question.

"What did you realize?" his voice was low, emotionless, preparing for disappointment.

"I love you. I really think I do. Stupid that it took you losing your mind for me to admit it to you." She laughed at herself, giving him the chance to think about what she had said.

"Think she's lying, Kutner? Or maybe she's delusional too. Maybe she thinks she's talking to Wilson." House ignored her. Cuddy wouldn't lie to him; she hadn't lied to him in twenty years.

"We made that up, remember? She's probably lied to you thousands of times."

"You love me?" he asked, still half convinced that the conversation was a delusion too. Everything could be a delusion; there was no way of knowing what was part of reality and what only happened in his mind.

"Yes." she half sobbed, "Yes, I love you, and you're scaring me. I just want you to come back and annoy me and nearly kill half your patients and cost the hospital millions of dollars in damages."

"The night I insulted you," he began slowly, knowing that now was the time to tell her, "I thought I had told you I needed you as you were walking out. I thought I had told you I was hallucinating, and that I needed you to help me detox. I thought we had gone back to my apartment, and that you had searched it for all my pills, and I though I had lain on the couch for hours, in pain, throwing up into a bucket. I thought you had sat with me in my bathroom and held my hand while I tried to control myself. I thought I had woken up on the couch to your breathing in the chair next to me. I thought," and at this point he needed to take a breath, all the memories of realizing none of it was real were coming back to him, "I thought that we had stood at the doorway, and that you had asked me if I wanted to kiss you, and I had told you the truth, that I always wanted to kiss you. I thought that you were in my arms, and that I was kissing you, and you," he took another shaky breath, willing himself to continue, tears now streaming out of his eyes and down into his beard, "You were kissing me back, and I had never felt anything like it, I was kissing your neck as you were pressed up against my wall. I thought I had taken off your shirt, and my hands were at your back, and you were kissing me with passion, and I pulled you into to my bedroom, and," he could now hear her crying on the other line too, he sucked in and continued, unable to control the shaking in his voice now, but needing to go on, "I thought we had made love, and that's why-"

"That's why you wouldn't leave me alone that day." She finished for him, now realizing the truth. He nodded.

"She can't see you nodding, bonehead. Say something. Unless you think you're crying too hard. In that case, you better hang up the phone before you accidentally emotionally bond with her."

"I thought that you thought the night was a mistake. When you told me that we could never have anything together…"

"I was awful to you that day. I lost control when you told everyone you had slept with me, I didn't know, I thought you just wanted to push me over the edge, I didn't know you thought we had had sex the night before, I thought that you were just talking about when we were dating twenty years ago. You had made me so mad; I didn't want to see you ever again. I fired you, I went back to my office, and I thought that was the end of it. But when you looked at me when I had said those things, you looked like I had broken some impossible dream you had been living in. And I did." He didn't know if he could take any more, he couldn't even see her, but he imagined her face, one that he could still see so clearly screwed up in anger, covered in tears, her eyes red and puffy.

"I did those things because I wanted you-"

"You wanted me to know you wanted more?"

"Yeah." His voice was choked, the orderly had turned away politely, and tears were still coming out of his eyes. He hadn't wanted his conversation with Cuddy to end up like this, but it had.

"Well, what did you think it would have ended up like? I love you, House, tell your hallucinations to screw off, let's go buy a house in the suburbs and plant tulips?" Amber made a face at him, then sat down on a chair.

"I thought that maybe we could have tried to have a relationship. I took infrared pictures of you, to prove that I had an effect on you, I stole your coffee cup, I tried to make you angry, anything to get you to admit you had feelings for me."

"So that's what you were doing with that camera. That's why my coffee tasted different after you left."

"Yeah." He paused, not sure what to say next.

"It was just one more insult, one more thing that I wished you hadn't said, and suddenly I had no tolerance of you."

"That night, the night you took me to Wilson, the night I realized I wasn't okay? That was one of the worst nights of my life. When I realized that I had sat alone in my bathroom, that I had swallowed more pills than I could count, that I had actually woken up by myself because there was no one there the night before, I didn't know if I could have sunken any lower. I had thought that your lipstick was sitting on my bathroom sink. I took it to work with me, wanting to give it back to you. But it was just another bottle of Vicodin." he finished bitterly. He heard her trying to control her sobs, and he tried to control his own, breathing in deeply to get rid of the catch in his throat.

"Well, here I am, deteriorating, admitting my secrets to you, expressing my emotions."

"You've never done that before. This is good."

"Yeah, it's really good. I'm breaking down again, I haven't cried over you for a few weeks now. Thanks for breaking my record, Cuddy, you always manage to mess me up somehow." he finished, half smiling to himself.

"Yeah, it's always me messing you up. Looks like you messed yourself up this time."

"Yup. But maybe I can unmess myself. Maybe I'll be back to terrorize you later."

"I'll be looking forward to your inappropriate comments about my ass."

"Speaking of your ass…"

"I'm sorry, House, I have to go. Rachael's monitor just went off. Take care of yourself, okay?"

"I think I have more than enough people to take care of me, actually. But thanks, anyway. Bye Cuddy."

"Bye House." He just about hung up the phone, but decided to say something before his courage deserted him.

"I love you." She sniffed, and then replied.

"I love you too." He pressed the off button on the phone, handed it back to the man in the doorway, and started to cry, really cry, no longer caring about his dignity.

"Well that was a nice conversation. Let's hope it actually happened."


	4. Chapter 4

"I don't even understand why we are having this conversation." Once more, House was arguing with Amber over his continually deteriorating mental state. It had been a week since Cuddy had phoned him, and two weeks since Wilson had last visited him.

"You're slipping into a heavier depression now. Your bestest buddies are ignoring their mental friend." She told him with a big sappy fake frown, "You're obviously missing something, or you would have figured it out and I would be gone. Try looking under the bed." she finished with a smirk.

"You being a smartass is getting us nowhere."

"Yeah, notice how you being a smartass also gets you nowhere. Which reminds me, it's almost time for your weekly shouting match with useless shrink number ten, Dr. Burrows." House shuddered at the thought of the woman. Ever since the first Saturday he had been there, she had come into his room once a week to talk about the people in his life. Which of course led him to being bitingly sarcastic and her responding in kind. He had to hand it to the rosy cheeked, curvaceous woman though. She sure knew how to fight back. A knock at the door told him that his least favourite and most exiting part of the week had arrived.

"Come in, Dr. Burrows. Let's get all the touchy feely stuff over with." he said cheerily as she opened the door. A chestnut haired woman of thirty-four walked into the room, wearing a dark blue t-shirt, faded blue jeans and a white lab coat.

"Like we ever get to do anything with feelings. You sure get touchy though." She shot back at him, knowing enough about his games to keep playing with him.

"Hey, about me trying to grab your ass last week… it was nothing personal, I haven't had a woman since I got here." he joked, trying to lighten the mood. But Dr. Helen Burrows rarely took his bait the way he wanted her to.

"Or before that, according to Dr. Wilson. Unless you count hookers, which really, don't count at all. Remember, I know everything about you that other people know, which I suspect just barely scratches the surface of the fantastic person that is hiding behind that scraggly beard." she replied, rolling her eyes. Gregory House was one of her most difficult patients, but one of her favourites. She appreciated his dry sense of humour, although it was rarely helpful. They probably could have become close friends if they had met under different circumstances.

"Hey, it's not my fault that my facial hair is a little overgrown." he said, stroking the beard he longed to get rid of, "They won't let me have a razor, in case I want to 'self harm'"

"I think you've done enough self harming, although never with any effort. You destruction lies within your ability to believe that you can keep bouncing off walls without getting any lasting bruises." Great, she was going off on another serious rant. Usually their bantering lasted about ten minutes before she brought out the big guns, but apparently this time she had decided to go for the throat. "You cannot hide behind your crippled thigh, you cannot allow your only defining qualities to be your pain, your addiction, and your crude treatment of other people. Just because you distrust society as a whole doesn't mean that you can't let a few people into your life." Apparently this wasn't one of those sessions when she just stared at him until he spoke.

"You've gotten rid of my addiction, now all I have left is my pain and me being an ass."

"You can never get rid of the addiction," she countered, "It is still there, it will always be there, waiting for you to test yourself. But I think we both know that the Vicodin only played a small part in the destruction of your entire world." She was blunt, unlike the other shrinks who talked to him, she didn't skirt around his issues. He gave her credit for that.

"So what made me finally crack, one hamburger too many? Or, I know, let's focus on my part in Amber's death this week. We talked about Kutner last week."

"We never actually discussed your role in Lawrence Kutner's suicide, you merely shouted at me that you didn't care that he was dead, only that you didn't see it coming. You are still experiencing guilt, a normal human emotion that seems to just screw you up. You're wired differently than the rest of humanity, Dr. House." That was another thing he liked about her, she addressed him as Dr. House, not as Gregory like the other shrinks.

"So you're saying that the whole mental breakdown thing is because I don't know what to do with guilt? That might make sense, if I was feeling any."

"You know, you can stay here for the rest of your life, hiding behind the wall you so carefully crafted to keep other people out of your head. Or, you can open up and tell me what has been going on. I'm not going to treat you like a simpleton; we're going to work on the path to your recovery as equals. I need your version of the truth, not some garbled version from others." House looked up at her with hollow eyes.

"The truth? I don't even know what the truth is anymore." he said flatly, looking down at the table again.

"Speak your mind, tell the pretty lady how you've been feeling guilty about getting poor Amber to pick you up that night. How you feel guilty about not paying enough attention to Kutner. How you feel guilty about screwing up all your chances with Cuddy." Amber leered at him, daring him to talk, daring him to do something that was so against his nature. "It's not like you have anything to lose any more, you've already lost it all! Your job, your friends, your mind, your ability to see what everyone else can't, the ability that you prized over all else." He couldn't decide what to do, two equal and opposite desires were acting upon him, one wanting to have the weight of his emotions lifted off his shoulders, the other wanting to stay inside his comfort zone.

"I wish I hadn't screwed up with her so many times." He was surprised as Dr. Burrows to hear the words come out of his mouth.

"Dr. Cuddy you mean? The one you had sex with in your delusion?"

"Oooh, goody, now you get to talk to Dr. Busty about your female problems. This should be fun. 'I loooooooooove Dr. Cuddy, but she doesn't looooooooooove me. Oh boo hoo.'" House ignored her, something that was getting easier and easier to do as the weeks went by.

"I've known her for twenty years." he stated flatly, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice, something that Dr. Burrows noticed. "I've been in love with her since I met her back in Michigan, though I didn't really know what I felt back then."

"You've just figured out what you've been feeling all these years when you got here, didn't you?"

"Well, in case you haven't noticed, I've had a lot of time to myself. Or at least a lot of time to myself and my two hallucination fairies."

"Every chance you've had, you've pushed her away, haven't you? Because you think that if you get close to her, you'll just end up hurting her. But tell, me, House, what's the worst thing that you could have done to her? Shown up late to dinner with her parents? Shown up drunk to an important function? Not show up at all, because you're cheating on her with her secretary? Do you really think you'd do that? Are those really the worst things you could do to her? I think the worst thing you can do to her is to never show her that you care. Because you do care. You care so much it sickens you, to be able to feel so much emotion, to be so ridiculously clichéd. You hate the idea of someone having so much effect on you, because it humbles you, it means that you're only human. Before, you just thought that you were completely right brained, but now you know that you have an emotional, irrational side. This cold, withdrawn Gregory House was being replaced by a Gregory House that was finally happy, because he had thought that he had slept with Lisa Cuddy. And when you finally realized that it was all a lie, you didn't even know who you were anymore. But you were happy, for a little while. Sleeping with Cuddy gave you that happiness. But you're scared now, because you don't know if you'll ever get the chance to be happy because of that, you're scared that you're going to be in here forever. So you've withdrawn again, you don't want to talk to anyone. I've heard your conversations with James Wilson, they're strikingly different than the conversations you have with your delusions. You keep your real feelings hidden even from him, the man you've been through so much with, the man whose girlfriend is dead because of you, because of your selfishness. Do you still feel guilty about that? I think that you do. But if you don't talk to anyone except your own head, expect to be here for a very long time."

"I have talked to someone though, you should know, you've been listening to all my conversations. Last week, I talked to Cuddy, I told her that I loved her; she told me that she loved me. So that's over with. Why don't I feel better then? Do I need to talk to Kutner's ghost now?"

"We have no records of Lisa Cuddy calling you last week." Dr. Burrows looked through the thick file that she had brought with her. "We only have Dr. James Wilson calling you, last Tuesday, at four twenty two." She looked up at him, concerned.

"I thought that I was talking to Cuddy." he said dully, while inside he was crashing. Amber had said maybe it was all just another delusion, but thinking that Wilson was Cuddy? He replayed the conversation in his mind; he could hear her sobbing so clearly, he heard himself speaking the words that had been on the tip on his tongue for years.

"So that's why Wilson hasn't called me. He got freaked out by the emotional conversation I thought I was having with Cuddy."

"I can get the recording for you, House. We can listen to it together, and figure out what it means."

"I don't want to."

"House, we have to look at everything, to look for hints of what can help you and what is only slowing you down. For example, the other sessions you've been having with the other shrinks around here are only causing you to further doubt yourself. I know you're not stupid, your mind is trying to tell you something. Let's figure it out. I'll be back in five minutes with the tapes." It was just like last time he had deluded something with Cuddy. The period of happiness, when he thought that she actually cared and loved him, followed by the period of rejection. But both times she hadn't really rejected him; she hadn't known what was really going on.

"So, I guess Cuddy still can't deal with you after two and a half months. I know you're getting better." Amber said suddenly, "I can feel myself slipping away. One more big push and whoosh, I'm out of here." He really hoped that she would disappear soon. The only hope in hell he had with rebuilding his life didn't include invisible people following him around.

"You knew. You knew that I never really talked to her and you've been leading me on for the past week, letting me think that she gave up on me."

"Oh dear, your own hallucination betrayed you. Maybe we had that delusion because you need to see what could happen if you just let you emotions escape you."

"Bullshit. You just wanted to torture me, like you've been torturing me for the past three months."

"Now why would I want to do that? I was under the impression that I was only here so your subconscious could tell you something." House was about to speak when he heard footsteps down the hall. The door swung open, revealing Dr. Burrows with a stack of tapes.

"House." she said as she came back into the room and sat down. "I have the tapes. Do you want to hear them?"


	5. Chapter 5

"Play them." He said in a flat voice, using ever fiber of his being to keep it from breaking. Dr. Burrows slipped the tapes into a tape player, and they waited together, House with his breath held, her with her hands clasped firmly together.

"_Hi. Dr. Crazy House here._" His own low voice interrupted the static. He didn't realize that he sounded so ridiculous when he was trying to sound ridiculous.

"_House?_" Wilson's voice was soft, perfected after months of tiptoeing around his emotions. Dr. Burrows looked at House and he stared back at her resolutely, willing himself to listen to the entire tape. His heart was already breaking at hearing Wilson's voice, not the woman's voice he remembered so vividly.

"_Yeah. Sorry I confused you with the crazy part, but that's what I am these days. A psycho just like the rest of them. Couldn't keep my real name, you see. The retailer in the room down the hall is the Mad Hatter, although I wouldn't try phoning him. Still thinks he's a goose._" Wilson chuckled nervously, waiting for House to go on.

"_So, what took you so long to call?_" House took a deep breath, he could hear the longing in his voice, and it made him realize just how much he had wanted to talk to the woman.

"_Come on House, I've been visiting you in person, just because I haven't phoned you doesn't mean I'm neglecting you. Jesus Christ you must get lonely in there, but I guess you have uhh, company._" He gulped nervously.

"_Don't count on it, Cuddy. Bonnie and Clyde are still bothering me._"

"_Uh, House, it's Wilson. Not Cuddy. You haven't been seeing her too, have you? I know, I mean you had the delusion…_" Wilson sounded concerned, and nervous. This hadn't been the first time House had lost track of reality when Wilson talked to him.

"_Wilson didn't tell you? I've been seeing Kutner too._"

"_I know, House, I am Wilson. This isn't Cuddy!_" His voice was starting to get that desperate sound to it, like when he was trying to get House out of some stupid idea he had.

"_It's not so bad. Aside from the derogatory comments about my mental health and the constant questioning about why I didn't see his suicide coming, it's been really fun. Having two people who aren't really there is a lot better than just Cutthroat Bitch. This way, they can bounce ideas without me taking part. Although I guess it's all me. You just interrupted a game of badminton, actually._"

"_Who was winning?_" He asked weakly, hoping that if he just went with the conversation, House would eventually snap out of it.

"_Amber. Kutner's a lousy smasher._"

"_Right. House, it's Wilson. Can you please talk to me? I need to know if you know it's me._"

"_Well, you'd know more than me through Wilson. I just sit here, go to tests, get my head scanned, talk to lousy psychiatrists who couldn't help a lost puppy, and listen to people yell at me who aren't there. Not much information given to me. I'm a patient, and they generally don't disclose 'sensitive' information. I have no idea what the hell is wrong with me, but it's not the Vicodin._"

"_Well, obviously not, otherwise you wouldn't be talking to me thinking it's Cuddy!_"

"_Yeah, I asked them to stop giving it to me._"

"_House! Can you even hear me?_"

"_Yeah, well, I had already though I detoxed, so I figured it wouldn't be so bad. Which was really, really stupid. But I'm over it now, I think."_

"_House! I'm not Cuddy! You don't need to tell me what happened._"

"_Yeah._"

"_Yeah? Yeah, you know it's me?_"

"_Oh, God, Wilson hasn't told you yet?_"

"_House? Shit, House, it's Wilson! Can you hear what I'm saying? I'm not Cuddy!_" His voice had gotten higher, and House could hear the hint of hysteria in his voice. He recognized the part of the conversation where Amber had taunted him, but as expected, he heard nothing for a few second as the static crackled, Wilson was breathing on the other end, waiting for a reply.

"_Where have you been, Cuddy? I thought you would have gotten all the dizzying details about me by now._"

"_Look, House, I'm not Cuddy. If you're having this delusion because Cuddy hasn't visited you…_" he paused, sucking in his breath. "_She hasn't really been herself, lately._"

"_It's okay. I understand Cuddy, it's okay. Calm down, everything's fine._"

"_Fuck! No it's not House! You're still delusional after two and a half months here, and well, Cuddy's in denial!_" he shouted into the phone, as if Wilson believed that if he spoke louder, House would actually hear him.

"_That's stupid Cuddy, it's not your fault. Why the hell would it be your fault that I'm more fucked than a prostitute on a Saturday night?_" House laughed inwardly at his joke, it was true. And here was even more proof, he was carrying on a conversation with Cuddy when in reality it was Wilson on the other line.

"_Yes, you are House. You're completely fucked now! I thought you said they were making progress! How can you still be delusional?_"

"_And you need to tell me because you don't know if I'll be sane the next time you talk?_"

"_What do you think she's saying to you? House, if some part of your consciousness can hear me, can it please tell me something?_" The desperation in Wilson's voice touched something in House, and he felt a new feeling, one that could be described as a hand on his throat slowing squeezing and releasing his windpipe.

"House. Keep breathing, the feeling will pass. Are you still okay to listen to this?" Dr. Burrows had a look on her face that could only be described as deep, genuine concern. No other patient had had such an effect on her.

"_What did you realize?_" House heard his voice come out of the tape player, low, emotionless, preparing for disappointment.

"_Oh I don't know, maybe that you're still going insane, that you can't even hear me, that your absence is having an effect on everyone in the hospital. A shit load of things, House._" Wilson sucked in a breath.

"_You love me?_" House remembered saying that into the phone, scared to believe her, just in case the beautiful thing she had said would be taken away. And it had, taken away just as easily as the night he thought he had finally done something really good for himself. The longing, the careful doubt, the desire for her love, scared him. He had never really realized how much Cuddy had been a part of him, always there, but never there enough. He had made sure of that, pushing her away just enough to keep her safe. But was Dr. Burrows right? Was pushing her away before nothing even happened the worst thing that she could do to him?

"_Of course I love you House, I'll say it now because I know you can't hear me. I love you, and I miss you, and I want you back at the hospital, stealing my lunch and barging into my office while I'm telling people they're going to die in two weeks, and Cuddy, she loves you too. She's been affected by your destruction more than she admits. House, there's something I should tell you about Cudd-_"

"_The night I insulted you_," he began slowly, unknowingly cutting Wilson off, "_I thought I had told you I needed you as you were walking out. I thought I had told you I was hallucinating, and that I needed you to help me detox. I thought we had gone back to my apartment, and that you had searched it for all my pills, and I though I had lain on the couch for hours, in pain, throwing up into a bucket. I thought you had sat with me in my bathroom and held my hand while I tried to control myself. I thought I had woken up on the couch to your breathing in the chair next to me. I thought,_" House heard himself take a breath, and he needed to get more oxygen into his brain too, it was becoming overwhelming to relive this conversation, one that had been emotional enough to begin with. "_I thought that we had stood at the doorway, and that you had asked me if I wanted to kiss you, and I had told you the truth, that I always wanted to kiss you. I thought that you were in my arms, and that I was kissing you, and you,_" he heard himself take another shaky breath, and he could feel the tears that had been on his face that day, could feel them trickling into his beard "_You were kissing me back, and I had never felt anything like it, I was kissing your neck as you were pressed up against my wall. I thought I had taken off your shirt, and my hands were at your back, and you were kissing me with passion, and I pulled you into to my bedroom, and,_" And then House realized that the tears he thought he was imagining on his face that day were real, and pouring out of his eyes, Dr. Burrows was looking at him, he could tell that she was using everything in her power to remain professional, to not cry, to not let one more patient's problems bring out her emotions, but House could see her eyes, much glassier than before, fill with sadness.

"_I thought we had made love, and that's why-_"

"_Oh God, House. You never told me that. You never described what you had felt that day. Why haven't you opened up to me? Can you really only open up to Cuddy? Are you just talking to her because you need to believe that in order for you to tell me what's really going on?_" Wilson's voice was now level, but still shaking.

"_I thought that you thought the night was a mistake. When you told me that we could never have anything together…_" House remembered, again, the complete rejection he had felt from her that day, he remembered wondering why she hadn't felt the connection he had when their bodies and minds joined together in the most intimate way.

"_Jesus, House, you could have told me all this! You, of course, being the introvert that you are, never told me how badly Cuddy hurt you when she brushed you off. I knew it must have been bad when you came back down to earth, but…_" his voice trailed off, almost as if he had given up on talking to someone that couldn't really hear him.

"_I did those things because I wanted you-_"

"_You wanted her more than anything that day. I was proud, I thought that you were actually going to do something about Cuddy, that you were finally going to get together with her, make her happy, make yourself happy. Look, House, I need to tell you something about Cuddy. Maybe you'll get all sappy and want to listen to your invisible conversation with Cuddy, maybe someone will notice and tell you, but you need to know this. I can't visit you for a while House, and I'm sorry if you feel like I've given up on you right now, but Cuddy needs me. She's seriously in denial, and not the type of denial that you think she has._"

"_Yeah._" House's voice interrupted. Wilson continued on, unable to stop. "_She literally doesn't think that you're gone. Sometimes, when I talk to you, she wanted to keep updated about your state, but sometimes I'll catch her in her office, and she thinks that she's talking to you._"

"_I thought that maybe we could have tried to have a relationship. I took infrared pictures of you, to prove that I had an effect on you, I stole your coffee cup, I tried to make you angry, anything to get you to admit you had feelings for me._" His voice, so low it was almost a growl, interrupted Wilson's high pitched, hysterical one again.

"_She still thinks you're there, bantering with her or asking her to do a brain biopsy or something. I don't just think that she's trying to compensate for your absence; I think that she really thinks you're there._"

"_Yeah._" House said again. Had he really been oblivious to all the things that Wilson was telling him? And how could Cuddy have sunk so low so quickly?

"_And she kept talking about this guy named Todd, and I know he doesn't exist, because whenever she shows pictures of her with him, there's nothing there. It's empty, like your office, although I sometimes see her there like you're still ordering around your fellows._"

"_That night, the night you took me to Wilson, the night I realized I wasn't okay? That was one of the worst nights of my life. When I realized that I had sat alone in my bathroom, that I had swallowed more pills than I could count, that I had actually woken up by myself because there was no one there the night before, I didn't know if I could have sunken any lower. I had thought that your lipstick was sitting on my bathroom sink. I took it to work with me, wanting to give it back to you. But it was just another bottle of Vicodin._"

"_I don't even know why I'm telling you all this, you probably won't hear it. But I need to tell someone. Foreman's in charge now, and she talks to him like he's you, although mercifully she doesn't use your name. I think one part of her brain knows that you're gone, and is trying to make up a part of her life for her. And-" and at this point, Wilson's voice really did break, and he heaved a couple sobs, before continuing, "This is going to kill you, if you ever hear this, but I thought I heard her talking on the phone to her mother about her being pregnant. She's not pregnant House, I tested her when she was passed out on the couch in her office. There's something wrong with her. I'm going to talk to her tonight, that's why I called you, although I didn't know if you could handle it in your current state. But I guess you're a little beyond comprehension now." _Wilson's speech had taken place of the long pause that House had thought had taken place after he admitted to someone who was definitely not Cuddy all the things he had been feeling.

"_Well, here I am, deteriorating, admitting my secrets to you, expressing my emotions."_

"_Yes, this was a good conversation for both of us, we both let things out, even if there really wasn't the person we wanted to hear them on the other end. What am I going to do about Cuddy? I know I'm going to talk to her, but what can I say? What if she's not all there, like you? It's stupid, how you both are talking to each other in your own little universe's Maybe your subconsciouses are just trying to tell you that you need each other._"

"_Yeah, it's really good. I'm breaking down again, I haven't cried over you for a few weeks now. Thanks for breaking my record, Cuddy, you always manage to mess me up somehow._" Something had messed him up, but it wasn't Cuddy. It was his own mind. Trying to tell him something.

"_Yeah, well now you're both messed up. Now I have to babysit two delusional people who should have just been together already._"

"_Yup. But maybe I can unmess myself. Maybe I'll be back to terrorize you later._"

"_Fuck House, you better be able to unmess yourself. Or there's going to be a serious lack of people to talk to at the hospital._"

"_Speaking of your ass…_"

"_I'm sorry, House, I have to go. I'm going to be late for meeting with Cuddy. I bet you would have some choice things to say to her, if you were of your right mind._"

"_I think I have more than enough people to take care of me, actually. But thanks, anyway. Bye Cuddy._"

"_Bye, House. Wilson's saying goodbye, I don't know for how long._" House knew what the pause in conversation was for, he was just about to hang up the phone before plucking up the courage to say…

"_I love you._" Wilson sniffed, and then replied

"_I love you too._" Wilson hung up the phone. After what seemed like an eternity, the static stopped. House looked up to see Dr. Burrows looking at him, her face finally covered with tears to match his own. House knew that hearing this conversation was more painful than the first time, because now he knew the truth about why he and Wilson were so reluctant to open up to each other. They were both near the breaking point. But now, it seemed like all three of the friends were at rock bottom.


	6. Chapter 6

"Guess what day it is?" Amber said cheerfully as House reluctantly opened his eyes.

"Saturday!" he said equally cheerfully, wanting to get her stupid game over with. Yesterday was Friday, the day before that Thursday. To be honest, he was looking forward to today. It was the only day that he felt like he was making some sort of progress.

"You're going to have another fun chat with Dr. Burrows about Cuddy." Last week they had left off at the end of the tape of the phone call; Dr. Burrows had been called away after one of her patients crashed. Her eyes had still been brimming with tears, her face was still sticky and her eyes were red and puffy. Her had made her like that. Him, and his stupid fucked up life. Well, finally they would talk again, maybe they could call up Wilson and find out what was going on. A knock on the door alerted him to the fact the his favourite shrink was there.

"Come in, Dr. Burrows!" Amber called in a high falsetto.

"Come in, Dr. Burrows." House said, echoing the hallucination that really should have just left already. He had started a new therapy, a treatment whose name he hadn't even bothered to learn, such was his current disinterest. If only he had some sort of medical symptom, but they had all dried up after he got rid of the Vicodin. He could actually work with medical symptoms, it was all this mental stuff he couldn't deal with. No, he had always hated psychiatry, he had always thought it was stupid although now he realized it was because he had never really wanted to put reasons to his personality. Sure, he recgonised that value of being able to read people, but he was never one to get too in tune with his own emotions. There was something wrong with the way his brain worked, that was good enough for him.

"How are you? Oh, wait, I know, you're 'fine', finding out that the woman you're in love with was having wore delusions that you hasn't been a shock to your system at all. Sorry I bothered you, goodbye." She turned towards the door.

"Don't want you to leave." House mumbled.

"Oh? You want me to stay? Has the great Greg House broken down?"

"You're starting to sound like Amber. I don't like it.

"So Amber's still here?"

"Yeah. But I haven't seen her everyday, you would know, I'm sure you've been in touch with the nurses who come to 'check up' on my, the stupid idiots who keep telling me it's all going to fine." He hadn't seen her the second day after his new treatment, she was just a voice in his head, by the third day she was gone completely, but on Friday she had returned.

"That's bullshit." She said unexpectedly.

"What's bullshit?"

'Nothing's going to be alright, even if you get out of here, you still have to piece your life back together. If you get out of here, which isn't going to happen if you don't cooperarate."

"I am cooperating!"

"No, you're not! Open up, for once in your miserable life! All the answers you've given to your shrinks have been utter bullshit! Tell us all the ugly, regretful, stupid, irrational things you've been thinking!" she nearly shouted at him. It was clear that she had had enough of his deflecting..

"You don't need me to bloody 'open up', you already have everything you need with your recorded conversations with my fucking hallucinations!"

"Well, maybe it's better to talk to a real person sometimes! That's it, you're phoning Wilson!" Shit, the one thing he had been dreading and hoping to do since he had heard the tapes.

"Fine." He muttered.

"Good." She seemed to have calmed down after his response. Sometimes he really riled her up, but he liked having a shrink that he could actually yell at and get some reverse feedback.

"I have a phone right here." she said, handing him a black cordless. He reluctantly rook it, dialing Wilson's number from heart. It wasn't as if he had anything to loose, he had been there almost three months, he could phone his best friend. Wilson picked up on the fourth ring.

"Hello?"

"Wilson. It's House."

"Jesus! House! Oh my god, how are you? I mean, after…"

"It's okay Wilson, I know about your phone call."

"So you know about Cud-"

"Yeah, I know about Cuddy. How is she?" House's voice nearly cracked at that, he had been thinking about her all week, wondering where she was and how she was doing. Oh, and feeling guilty about bringing it on her. He at least admitted that to himself.

"She's, well, I talked to her after our phone call two weeks ago. She knows she's delusional. Look, if I tell you this, promise you won't go off looking for her, okay? She just entered treatment a week and a half ago, so-"

"She's here?" House demanded, a cold and slippery hand gripping his chest. Was it a good thing that she was in the same facility as him?

"Yes, well, it seemed stupid to send her off somewhere else. My contact has been making fun of me for having two friends sent off to the nut house." Wilson finished bitterly, a hint of uncried tears in his voice.

"So I'm guessing its been super fun with me and Cuddy gone at the hospital."

"Oh yeah, buckets of fun, answering questions about you and Cuddy from nearly everyone in the hospital."

"I like how he talks to you like he thinks you're still sane." Amber commented. At least she was the only one with him now, she had been for some time. House ignored her, pressing on.

"So people have been asking about me a lot?"

"As I've told you several times, yes. And now that Cuddy's disappeared, everyone things that you moved to Cuba and Cuddy followed you." House laughed at that. His mind _had _gone to Cuba, and Cuddy's had followed.

"Is she taking visitors?" he asked, not sure what he wanted to hear. Dr. Burrows was still watching him concernedly. Who knows, maybe he would spontaneously burst into flame if the conversation took a turn for the worst.

"Well," Wilson told him reluctantly, "She's supposed to start taking visitors today, but I can't get over there."

"Well, good thing I'm already here." He had made up his mind, he was going to see her.

"House, no. It's not a good idea, you're both too fragile, one of you could get hurt."

"What I am, a piece of china? Come on, Wilson, it's just two delusional friends having a nice chat!"

"Jesus, House, what's gotten you into such a good mood? I woudn't think that Cuddy going crazy would be an upper for you."

"Maybe it's just the prospect of seeing her hot bod for the first time in months."

"I wouldn't be surprised if it was." Wilson chuckled. The prospect of seeing Cuddy, even though she was in the same place as him, seemed to have lifted his mood.

"Look, I have to go House, I just got called in for an emergency consult." House wondered who had taken over Cuddy's office, he hoped it was only temporary.

"You call me if you hear anything about her."

"Same to you, Wilson. And don't worry, we don't need to end the conversation with "I love you" again."


	7. Chapter 7

"So. Lisa Cuddy has been admitted." Dr. Burrows said to House after he had hung up the phone, her voice serious and unsurprised.

"You knew." he muttered.

"Yes. I knew as soon as she was admitted." Like all the other psychiatrists in her position, she had received Cuddy's file, and she had jumped on the opportunity to work with the woman that one of her patients was pining over.

"You took her case." House said, surprised.

"Yes. I've been working with her since last Sunday."

"So, you saw her after our session last Saturday, and you never came to tell me what was going on? Did you know that she had been admitted before you came and talked to me?" Oh yeah, that made a lot of sense, let your already emotionally fragile patient worry about something that was left unresolved for a week before even coming close to addressing it, while not even telling him the same story. That was real smart.

"No, I had just gotten the case late that night. I thought that it would be best for you to think about the implications about what Wilson had said, rather than have me point out all the straight facts. I let you figure it out yourself with Wilson too."

"Yeah? That strategy in the book of psychology? Or is it something you're pioneering yourself?"

"Sarcasm really isn't helpful at this point, House."

"Sorry, I forgot, sarcasm is just a way of coping with unfriendly situations. Dr. Thomas told me that one. Aren't you happy I'm learning, mommy?"

"Not particularly. Now, I expect that you want to see Cuddy sometime? Even though it's a really freakin' bad idea?"

"Yes." he said stubbornly.

"Well, I'll check her schedule.'

"So what, her file just popped up in your inbox? Or did you have her named flagged since I admitted I was in love with her?"

"All incoming cases are forwarded to sets of doctors in different departments, for each treatment category. You apply to get the case, often competing against other people in your department. Sometimes the boss man selects a case for you, and if you don't take it, you get in deep shit."  
"Let me guess. You didn't want to get into deep shit for my case?"

"No," she said, smirking, "I wanted your case. I beat out three other women." House chuckled at that. Even in the crazy house, chicks still fought over him.

"Why the hell did you want my case? Wasn't getting enough challenge with the other crazies?"

"Pretty much. You seemed, from your file, to be a stubborn bastard who would be resistant to traditional methods."

"By traditional methods do you mean brainwashing?"

"Pretty much." Dr. Burrows really did seem like the only decent person here, aside from his occasional visits from Wilson. She was forward with him, having recognized that a person of his intelligence would see past any farce.

"So what are you doing with me? Some sort of reverse-reverse-reverse psychology?"

"I believe in coming up with a treatment method that matches the way the patient's mind works."

"And have you figured out how mine works?" Few people had ever seen even a fraction of what he really thought; it seemed unlikely that this woman had figured him out in such a short time.

"Hmm," she smiled, "We'll see about that. Now, you wanted to see Dr. Cuddy sometime before you die?"

"Yes." House grumbled, trying to hide from her how badly he wanted to see her, how curious he was. Which of course, didn't work. It's hard to lie when in the presence of someone who reads people for a living.

"Well, her visiting time today is booked by her parents, and you wouldn't have been able to get into that anyway, being a patient. There is one thing that you can do though…"

"What?" he asked flatly, already having an inkling of where this was going, a suspicion that was only intensified at the evil grin forming on her cherubic face.

"Group therapy. Her session starts in forty-five minutes."

"This isn't the same group that I started off with, is it? The one with the crazy gorgonzola man?" His first forced attempt at something resembling group therapy had started in his second week. Needless to say, it had ended in disaster, with him ending up insulting everyone present and mocking one man for ending up there for trying to mate with a piece of gorgonzola cheese.

"No. This one only has three other patients in it, including Cuddy, none of them under the impression that they needed to impregnate a dairy product. Unless they left something out of Cuddy's file." Group therapy really was a mix of people from all the different areas of the facility, from rehab to chronic mental illness.

"So I have to take part in a therapy session with some concrete headed shrink, along with two other people and the root of all evil?"

"Well, I can let you in on a secret. The other patients aren't really patients, they're actors; there wasn't anyone else in this therapy block, so they hired two fake patients. It's not really the cases that matters; it's the bonding with other people."

"And you're telling me this so that I can bond even better with people who are paid to be here, rather than the other way around?" Sometimes he really didn't understand the things that Dr. Burrows did.

"No, I'm telling you because you would have figured it out and gotten all angry and closed. You can spot false sympathy from someone a mile off."

"I've never seen any false sympathy from you."

"That's because I haven't given you any."

"Or maybe my radar's broken." House still refused to believe that anyone should, or could, care about him.

"Do you want to get into this therapy group? It's really your only chance to talk to her; your rooms are on opposite ends of the building."

"Yeah." There was nothing to lose anymore, he could spare a few hours of his time to satisfy his curiousity.

"I'll get a nurse to bring you down in forty minutes. This is the end of our session, House."

"So I guess I'll see you next week? After you talk to Cuddy tomorrow, I guess you'll have a lot of information to tell me."

"Now you know I couldn't do that. It would break patient confidentiality." she winked at him, before walking out of his door. Great. Group therapy with a surely screwed up Cuddy. What had he gotten himself into?


End file.
